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SAD 33 Chooses Coal As Fuel Alternative Facing Low Temperatures and Steep Oil Costs, School Fires Furnace and Saves Cash

Posted on: Tuesday, 6 December 2005, 15:00 CST

By BEURMOND BANVILLE; OF THE NEWS STAFF

FRENCHVILLE - It's out with the new and in with the old in SAD 33. Actually it's out with the fuel oil and in with the coal, and huge savings have been realized since the coal furnace at Wisdom High School was fired in late October.

During an oil price crunch years ago, SAD 33 installed coal furnaces in both Wisdom High School and the Dr. Levesque Elementary School. After the oil crunch faded, so did the use of the furnaces.

With another oil crunch escalating, heating oil prices have skyrocketed, creating huge financial problems for SAD 33. The school believed in early fall that heating costs could be cut in half with coal.

SAD 33 has a $100,000 heating oil budget, but after the tanks were filled late this summer, the school district had only $23,000 left. The cost of a gallon of heating oil jumped from $2.04 at that filling to more than $2.64 now.

"We refurbished the old coal furnace at Wisdom," Superintendent Fern Desjardins said Monday. "It's working, and it's saving us a lot of money.

"We are burning coal successfully at the high school," she said. "We are working on the coal furnace at Dr. Levesque School as well."

Fern Beaulieu, the school's head custodian, worked on the furnace along with Honeywell professionals, who are now working on the Dr. Levesque School furnace. Desjardins hopes that one will be on line by January or February.

She said the high school system is great and that the building is warm.

"We needed to look at alternatives," she said. "The price of oil was high, and we needed to find a way to stay within the budget."

She was able to get coal from Center Farms of Easton, and she said the savings is about $2,500 per 24-ton tractor-trailer load. SAD 33 has purchased two tractor-trailer loads of coal so far.

The school had stopped burning coal because the price of oil and its delivery problems had subsided more than a decade ago.

"Now it was worth our while to look at it again," Desjardins said. We are planning on burning coal in the future as well."

She said the school district will burn oil during warmer months, and coal during severe cold periods of the year.

"That is, unless prices go the other way again," she said.

Wisdom High School is heated by two coal-burning furnaces. The elementary school has one coal-burning furnace.

In other news, the school district will continue the annual potato harvest recess to assist farmers with the annual chore. This is despite a drop in the number of students working the harvest from 83 percent last year to 62 percent this year.

"More kids have regular jobs now and they hold onto them during harvest," Desjardins said. "There is still more than 60 percent working the harvest.

"It's still worth it to have farmers get the help they need," she said. "We certainly want to provide the help to farmers and the option to students."

The school's enrollment, as of the Oct. 1 reporting deadline, has remained stable. At that time, there were two students fewer in the district than last year, 328 total, but SAD 33 registered a few more pupils since then.

Source: Bangor Daily News

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